Life and Death

And just like that, time went by.

100 years, 1.000 years, 10.000 years ... 1 million years later:

In the stars, there was a planet about ten times the size of Earth. If you looked at it from space, you would think that there was life everywhere. Bright light illuminated a large part of the planet, and if you got closer, you could see the shining wood buildings forming a seemingly lively city. 

Restaurants, shops, hotels, spas are all around. There was even a giant wooden roller coaster around the city. It seemed like a dream come true for every person lucky enough to live there.

And indeed, someone was lucky enough to live here. On the top floor of a wooden skyscraper, Michael woke up from his sleep. He stood up from his wooden bed and took his morning dose of ISIE. He didn't need to sleep anymore, but he did it anyway. 

He looked like your local crazy homeless person. Wearing ragged clothes and having disheveled hair. Looking dirty with reddening eyes and a smell worse than piss. But although he looked like shit, it didn't seem to bother him at all.

Instead, after he took his beloved ISIE, he laughed. And Michael has been laughing a lot for the past 1 million years. He loved to spend his time talking to his friends, planting more ISIE, and touring the cities. The world he lives in has a total of 100 cities, and Michael explored them all while laughing and having fun.

Michael stepped out of his hotel room and walked down the 50 floors of the house. He could have flown down as well, but where would be the fun in that? As he came down to the lobby, he walked up to the counter and asked, "Good morning. I'm here to check out of my room. How much do I owe you?". He waited for the response and said, "Oh, so it has gotten more expensive again. Tell the old man that changing the price won't make his hotel more attractive. Anyway, here is your money." He took a few wooden coins with different engravings out of his pocket, put them on the counter, and left the hotel. 

Michael walked through the city with a smile on his face. The vibrant colors, the different sounds, and sights all around left him fascinated with all the different places within the city.

He walked through a wonderful park with green grass and trees. He admired the buildings of the city and went swimming in an indoor swimming hall. Additionally, he talked with the other citizens a lot and enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere. Everyone is so nice to me, it feels like this is the perfect life. Now it's time to eat and then finish the day.

He found a small restaurant in the middle of an alley and sat down in an empty seat. "Bring me two portions of muscle strengthening potato soup, please." He said this to the waiter, who stood in front of his table. He waited for a few seconds and headed to the kitchen. After that, he took out his cooking equipment and the necessary ingredients for his meal. He made the two muscle strengthening soups and headed back to his table. He looked at the waiter again, who had not moved since he walked in. "Wow, that was quick, seems like I got really lucky to find a place like this, it smells delicious. Let's see if it tastes just as good as it smells."

Michael wasted no time and tasted the food. It was indeed delicious. "Potatoes have been my favorite food for a long time, but your restaurant is really special," he said to the waiter. Afterwards, he didn't look up anymore and finished his meal. After paying the bill, he said, "Man, the service here is just perfect. Nobody could do a better job, right?" He looked at an empty table and waited for a response. Nobody responded, but Michael still left the restaurant while laughing. As he left the restaurant, the wooden sculpture, which Michael called waiter, kept standing at the same spot where it had been standing since Michael made it. 

It was already nighttime, and Michael searched for a hotel to stay at for the night. He admired the tall wooden buildings and the night sky when he suddenly saw a number in the sky. He stopped moving and stared at the number for a bit. After watching the number 147 for a few seconds, tears started streaming down his face. And as Michael realized that, he quickly took another stalk of ISIE, ate it, and after a few seconds passed, he began laughing again.

In the past million years and under the influence of ISIE, Michael had done a lot. He planted trees, built houses, planted all kinds of other plants, and used them to make the city seem lively. Plants that light up places, plants that make different sounds, plants that are different colors. Of course, he also became proficient in alchemy and even cultivated. 

In the end, he built places to lose himself in them and actively tried to lose his sanity under his drug. And just like that, he lived on while still confined to Eulers trial, with 146 other participants left.

1 billion years later:

On a planet full of different wooden structures forming cities and countries, and a lot of fields full of different plants. There was one 1.000 times 1.000 km empty landmass. And in the middle of said landmass, laid a person completely naked.

He was a man without any hair on his body or his head. A bald, naked man. He was 1.80 meters tall and had no defining qualities besides his baldness. He laid in the dirt, but was not dirty at all. Instead, it seemed like nothing could dirty his body and his shiny bald head. 

As he laid there, he looked up at the sky, where a huge number was shown and stayed the same for the last 200 million years.

The person was Michael, and the number in the sky was 3.

Yes, he was so close to finally surviving the trial, which, in his mind, has been his only life for a long time. His life before the trial seemed like a dream, and Michael was not even sure if it ever was real, or if it was another one of his countless hallucinations during his drug consumption. He didn't know, and at some point he did not even care either.

After his drug didn't work anymore, there were only 69 contestants left. Michael was one of them, but after ISIE no longer had any effect on him, and even the alchemy pill he created to be up to 1 million times stronger in effect had no more effect on him, he thought he might as well just die now. In his eyes life was just not worth living anymore. Everything he did was not enjoyable anymore. Even planting plants and trees or eating his favorite potato dish was just something he did not want to do anymore. So Michael decided to die.

That was around 500 million years ago, and the reason he didn't die? He could not kill himself. It wasn't a courage problem. He literarily could not kill himself, however he tried. His body was just too sturdy to die because of the side effects of ISIE and the pill he later developed, called "TU ISIE". 

His cultivation was too high, and his lifespan was seemingly infinite. He went through the entire cultivation manual he got at the start and mastered every step in it, as well as improving the manual by leaps and bounds. After 500 million years, nothing could kill him. Even turning off all body functions, including turning off his own heart, did not result in himself dying, since his body didn't need any of that anymore to survive.

As there was nothing left that could kill him, he tried to end the trial in other ways. He tried to destroy the planet, but as soon as he was close to it, it was back to being perfectly fine. He tried to go out of the border or fly to other participants, but was always teleported back to his starting position. He tried to scream and shout for the people hosting the trial, but the only response he got was the spirit of the planet dictating some rules.

At some point, he just gave up. Michael had transcendent knowledge of every plant in his book. He concocted every pill in his alchemy book, as well as countless of his creations. He prepared himself the tastiest dishes. But in the end, there was no worth in any of that. 

I did everything this place had to offer with every item I had on me more times than I can count. I spent my last 500 million years enhancing my cultivation method to the maximum level, pushing alchemy to the end of its journey, and cooking every plant-based dish ever created. I feel like I'm as strong as a god, but in the end, nothing matters since there is nothing that can make me happy.

As there was nothing to do, I spent my days trying to die, but even that is impossible. I am both the strongest and also the weakest person there is. I am so alive that I cannot die, but at the same time, I am so dead inside that I cannot live.

It felt like Eulers trial was a scam. How will this ever end? If I can't kill myself, how will the others be able to kill themselves? They are probably aliens with inherent cultivation knowledge from even before the trial, so it should be easy to get as far as me in even less time. Are we just 3 unkillable entities waiting for nothing?

That thought has been in Michael's head for 500 million years, and although the number of participants dropped to 3, he was not hopeful at all that this trial would ever end.

Now, since about 2 million years, he did nothing. Michael lay in the dirt, watched the unmoving number, and did nothing else. He took all of his clothes off, because it did not matter to him if they were on or off. He could change the heat around him as he pleased, so there was no difference. 

He controlled his body functions to make his hair fall out and stopped it from growing ever since, since he didn't want hair to bother him. 

"Hey Siri, tell me every rule of the rule book again. "Ok rule 1...." This was his only activity. Asking the world spirit to tell him every rule and listen to its robotic voice as it tells every rule. He called it Siri since he wanted to name it, and it was his only "friend". 

He had given up completely and tried to stop thinking at all. He wanted to lessen the wait for the end of the universe. Then, Eulers trial would finally end in his death. He was hoping the universe would end rather sooner than later, but it did not really matter since he saw himself as dead anyway.

As he drifted in his thoughts about his hopefully fast-coming death, Siri suddenly stopped reading the rules and said, "Alert! Alert! Instability detected. Universal dimension break confirmed." As soon as Michael heard it, he flung himself up to his feet. "Is it really already the end of the universe? Can I finally die now?"

He was dazed in disbelief. Would this really be the end of the suffering? The end of his life as well as the end of his death. 

Suddenly there was another announcement: "Destruction confirmed. Initializing transfer." As Michael heard it, it suddenly felt like the whole planet was moving with him at a speed faster than light. He looked at the sky and suddenly saw the number crumbling above his head. 

As Michael saw it, he laughed like a maniac. "Hahahahahhaahahhaaha it is really over. The universe has ended, and I can die now!!!!!!!!" he screamed, and everything around him went black.